A generic rotary tablet press is described, for example, in DE 10 2009 025 779 A1. The generic rotary tablet press is certainly realized for producing multi-layered tablets with tablet cores, however the fundamental components of a corresponding tablet press with filling station, pressing station, control device and tablet outlet can be found in the meantime on almost all the rotary tablet presses available on the market.
In dependence on the number of punch pairs, the number of punch pairs being matched to the number of die bores in the die plate, the rotational speed of the rotor, the size of the tablet, the material used for pressing and the intended purpose of the tablet press, quantities of more than 500,000 tablets per hour can be produced using rotary tablet presses.
In particular in the case of tablets for the pharmaceutical industry, there are increased demands for the tablets to keep to relatively narrow boundaries with regard to their weight and their solidity applied via the pressing force, so that the licensing criteria for the medicines are followed and the active substance used in the tablets can develop in an optimum manner. During regular operation of a tablet press to produce tablets, it is usual to record and log the pressing force within the pressing station in order to deduce from this a first approximation of the supposed weight of the produced tablets. If a deviation of the pressing force is ascertained from a pressing force predefined in the automatic control for the tablet press, e.g. because the die bore was not filled in an optimum manner in the filling station or other irregularities have occurred, a control signal is generated to the discharging device in order to discharge such a tablet into the first channel, which, for example, then forms a bad tablet channel. A corresponding method of operation is described, for example, in DE 10 2005 005 012 A1. If there is no deviation in the pressing force and the rotary tablet press is in production, all the other tablets are normally discharged in a tablet stream as good tablets via the second channel.
It is also known in the prior art to use the discharging device and the first channel (individual channel) for the purpose of removing sample tablets in the current manufacturing process, said sample tablets being stored intermediately in a receiving container and being checked with regard to weight, solidity and size in a testing station which is separate from the tablet press. A solidity test, as a rule, leads to destruction of the tablet, which is why the sample tablets can no longer pass into the distribution. In the pharmaceutical field, sample tablets can also no longer pass into the distribution or the production yield because, in particular in the measuring station and the supply section to the measuring station, the high level of clean room requirements cannot be maintained at justifiable expense. The measuring results of the sample measuring, however, can be used for automatic control of the tablet press, however only with a considerable time delay. Consequently, in a standard manner, the pressing force measured in the pressing station currently forms the control parameter for the tablet press. All of the patents and/or publications referenced above are incorporated by reference into this specification and form part of the specification of this application.